4 Ways In Which Comicons Are Similar to Professional (Library) Conferences

Catherine Alderson is the current chair of the Western University CLA Student Chapter. She hails from the west coast, and though she understands rain, she still looks for Thor every time there is a thunderstorm. She has a totally normal love for female superheroes,YA literature, and the art of pie charts. This semester she can be found living in the computer lab, as her apartment is stupidly hot. She doesn't even mind the arctic temperatures of the lab. No really. 

Back in January, I got to experience my first library conference at the OLA Super Conference in Toronto. Having had such a great experience there, when the announcement came that the CLA/SLA conferences would be in Victoria and Vancouver respectively, I jumped at the chance to make the trip back to my home coast (when the west coast is involved, I will always volunteer as tribute). Brief and busy, the trip wasn’t much of a vacation, and I headed to the CLA conference right off the plane. The following week was used to recover from my conference experience, as well as to finally get acclimatized to the new time zone and the next thing I knew I was at the second conference. Then it was off to the airport to catch the red eye because it’s still the middle of the semester, and I have class at 9:00am. I met a ton of interesting, fantastic people in a variety of sessions, and everyone was incredibly kind, welcoming and generous with their time. I left feeling very encouraged, inspired and excited for the big “What’s Next?” when I graduate with my MLIS in August.
My past experience with gatherings of like minds, have been at what I affectionately term “nerd conventions”. In particular, Emerald City Comicon and Vancouver FanExpo. Surprisingly, there are several things that the two kinds of gatherings have in common.

Dress for success!

At various comicons, attendees let their geek flags fly. Whether through a particularly clever shirt, everyday cosplay, or straight up costuming.

Source: https://flic.kr/p/cBPGfC

At library conferences, people tend to dress anywhere from casual to business. You never know who you’re going to meet, so you want to make a great impression whether you’re representing yourself or your library.

Sleep? What Sleep?

Up early. Go to bed late. There is so much to see and do, sleep tends to get forgotten about.
A good rule of thumb, in an attempt to stay healthy through the conference, is the “5-2-1 rule”. Every day, make sure you get 5 hours of sleep, eat 2 solid meals, and have 1 shower. That shower one should go without saying, but for nerd conventions it kind of needs to be mentioned. Lots of people in a stuffy convention centre is a recipe for unpleasantness unless everyone follows some basic hygiene.

It’s Dangerous to Go Alone! Take This

Source: Know Your Meme

It’s going to be a long day, pack accordingly!

• Comfortable shoes – You will walk more than you think you will.
• Snacks – sometimes you miss lunch. Avoid that blood sugar crash!
• Water bottle – some conference centres have water everywhere (I LOVE YOU SO MUCH VICTORIA CONFERENCE CENTRE FOR THIS), others not quite so much. Stay hydrated! You’ll be talking to lots of people, and convention centres are always weirdly drying with their recycled air.
• A full charge on your phone. The cord so you can charge it again after the battery dies from all your live tweeting. A portable charger in case of a lack of outlet.
• Backpack or swag bag. You will acquire stuff. Sometimes from vendors, sometimes by magic.

Victoria Conference Centre Water Cozy

Meeting of the Minds

Ultimately for all that nerd conventions and library conferences appear different on the surface, they are both about gathering a bunch of people together who are all passionate about the same things. A great place to make new friends and connections, while learning and sharing about the things that inspire you.

In Defence of Volunteer Work

Tiffany Champagne is a final term MLIS student, and previously received her B.A. in History from Brescia University College. She enjoys drawing, writing, and reading (of course), and when not hard at work, often thinks about resume building and standing out. You can read more of her thoughts on librarianship at her blog here.

If any of you were like me, you often were told in high school, and perhaps beyond, that volunteer experience “looks good on a resume!” I’m not about to argue that. Nor am I going to argue that volunteering isn’t a good thing in general. But volunteering in libraries is a whole other ballpark.

Highlights from WILU 2014 (Workshop for Instruction in Library Use)

Sarah Morrison is the treasurer for the UWO CLA during the Summer 2014 term. She enjoys technology, non-fiction, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Lego, and Scaredy Squirrel. You can read more about her experiences at WILU on her blog at: http://sarahamorrison.net/tag/wilu2014/

The first event of day one was the keynote, hosted by Craig Gibson, from Ohio State University, and Trudi Jacobson, from theUniversity at Albany – SUNY. They were presenting about the Framework for 
Information Literacy for Higher Education, an initiative through the Association of College & Research Libraries. They talked about re-framing information literacy literacy based on threshold concepts.

Our first workshop was called Inspiring Professional Development on a Shoestring: Facilitating Learning Opportunities for Information Literacy Instructors. It was hosted by Lisa Shamchuk from MacEwan University in Edmonton. She spoke about the professional development activities she’s provided, including an IL Community, Library PD Days, and an amazing sounding IL Palooza. The highlight for me was talking about the teaching styles workshop she runs, where they all take a Teaching Perspectives inventory. I love stuff like this, and I took mine! I’m a nurturer, if you’re wondering.